1 Kings 13, 2 Chronicles 11, Revelation 21, Psalm 2

The Altar Shall Be Torn Apart

13Now behold, there came ^aa man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of Yahweh, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar ^bto burn incense. ²^aAnd he cried against the altar by the word of Yahweh, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh, ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, ^bJosiah is his name; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’” ³Then he gave a miraculous sign the same day, saying, “^aThis is the miraculous sign which Yahweh has spoken, ‘Behold, the altar shall be torn apart and the ¹ashes which are on it shall be poured out.’” ⁴Now it happened that when the king heard the word of the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him.” But his hand which he stretched out against him dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself. ⁵The altar also was torn apart and the ¹ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the miraculous sign which the man of God had given by the word of Yahweh. ⁶Then the king answered and said to the man of God, “Please ¹^,^aentreat Yahweh your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.” So ^bthe man of God ²entreated Yahweh, and the king’s hand was restored to him, and it became as it was before. ⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and ^aI will give you a gift.” ⁸But the man of God said to the king, “^aIf you were to give me half your house, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place. ⁹“For so ¹it was commanded me by the word of Yahweh, saying, ‘You shall eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way which you came.’” ¹⁰So he went another way and did not return by the way which he came to Bethel.

The Prophet Rebels Against Yahweh

¹¹Now ^aan old prophet was living in Bethel; and his ¹sons came and recounted to him all the work which the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words which he had spoken to the king, these also they recounted to their father. ¹²And their father said to them, “¹Which way did he go?” And his sons ²had seen the way which the man of God who came from Judah had gone. ¹³Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him and he rode away on it. ¹⁴So he went after the man of God and found him sitting under ¹an oak; and he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” And he said, “I am.” ¹⁵Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.” ¹⁶And he said, “^aI cannot return with you, nor go with you, nor will I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. ¹⁷“For a word came to me ^aby the word of Yahweh, ‘You shall eat no bread, nor drink water there; do not return by going the way which you came.’” ¹⁸And he said to him, “^aI also am a prophet like you, and ^ban angel spoke to me by the word of Yahweh, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.’” But ^che dealt falsely with him. ¹⁹So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water.

²⁰Now it happened as they were sitting down at the table, that the word of Yahweh came to the prophet who had brought him back; ²¹and he called out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘Because you have rebelled against the ¹word of Yahweh, and have not kept the commandment which Yahweh your God commanded you, ²²but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water”; your body shall not come to the grave of your fathers.’” ²³Now it happened after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, for the prophet whom he had brought back. ²⁴Then he went and on the way ^aa lion met him and put him to death, and his body was thrown on the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion also was standing beside the body. ²⁵And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown on the road, and the lion standing beside the body; so they came and spoke about it in the city where ^athe old prophet lived.

²⁶Then the prophet, who brought him back from the way, heard it and said, “It is the man of God, who rebelled against the ¹command of Yahweh; therefore Yahweh has given him to the lion, which has mauled him and put him to death, according to the word of Yahweh which He spoke to him.” ²⁷Then he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it. ²⁸And he went and found his body thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the body; the lion had not eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. ²⁹So the prophet took up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back, and he came to the city of the old prophet to mourn and to bury him. ³⁰He laid his body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, “^aAlas, my brother!” ³¹Now it happened after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons, saying, “When I die, you shall bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; ^alay my bones beside his bones. ³²“^aFor the word shall surely happen which he cried by the word of Yahweh against the altar in Bethel and ^bagainst all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of ^cSamaria.”

³³After this event Jeroboam did not return from his evil way, but ^ahe returned and made priests of the high places from among ¹all the people; ^bany who delighted to be so, he ordained. So ²they became priests of the high places. ³⁴¹^,^aAnd this event became sin to the house of Jeroboam, ^beven to blot it out and destroy it from off the face of the earth.

Rehoboam Builds Cities for Fortification

11^aThen Rehoboam came to Jerusalem and assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, 180,000 chosen men who could wage war, to fight against Israel to return the kingdom to Rehoboam. ²But the word of Yahweh came to ^aShemaiah the man of God, saying, ³“Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, ⁴‘Thus says Yahweh, “You shall not go up and fight against ^ayour brothers; return every man to his house, ^bfor this thing is from Me.”’” So they listened to the words of Yahweh and returned from going against Jeroboam.

⁵Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem and ^abuilt cities for fortifications in Judah. ⁶Thus he built Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, ⁷Beth-zur, Soco, Adullam, ⁸Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, ⁹Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, ¹⁰Zorah, Aijalon and Hebron, which are fortified cities in Judah and in Benjamin. ¹¹He also strengthened the fortresses and put officers in them and stores of food, oil and wine. ¹²And he put large shields and spears in every city and strengthened them greatly. So he held Judah and Benjamin.

¹³Moreover, the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel took their stand with him from all their territories.

Jeroboam Sets Up His Own Priests

¹⁴For ^athe Levites left their pasture lands and their possession of land and went to Judah and Jerusalem, for ^bJeroboam and his sons had rejected them from ministering as priests to Yahweh— ¹⁵^aAnd he set up priests of his own for the high places, for the goat demons and for the calves which he had made— ¹⁶^aNow those from all the tribes of Israel who gave their hearts to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, ¹followed them to Jerusalem, to sacrifice to Yahweh, the God of their fathers. ¹⁷^aThey strengthened the kingdom of Judah and gave courage to Rehoboam the son of Solomon for three years, for they walked in the way of David and Solomon for three years.

Rehoboam’s Family

¹⁸Then Rehoboam took as a wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David and of Abihail the daughter of ^aEliab the son of Jesse, ¹⁹and she bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. ²⁰And after her he took ^aMaacah the daughter of ¹Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. ²¹And Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom more than all his other wives and concubines. For ^ahe had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. ²²^aAnd Rehoboam set up Abijah the son of Maacah to be head and ruler among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. ²³And he acted with discernment and distributed ¹some of his sons through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin to all the fortified cities, and he gave them sustenance in abundance. And he sought a multitude of wives for them.

The New Heaven and Earth

21Then I saw ^aa new heaven and a new earth; for ^bthe first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. ²And I saw ^athe holy city, ^bnew Jerusalem, ^ccoming down out of heaven from God, ^dmade ready as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, ^athe tabernacle of God is among men, and He will ¹^,^bdwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among ²them, ⁴and He will ^awipe away every tear from their eyes; and ^bthere will no longer be any death; ^cthere will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. ^dThe first things passed away.”

⁵And ^aHe who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am ^bmaking all things new.” And He *said, “Write, for ^cthese words are faithful and true.” ⁶Then He said to me, “^aThey are done. I am the ^bAlpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. ^cI will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the ^dwater of life without cost. ⁷“^aHe who overcomes will inherit these things, and ^bI will be his God and he will be My son. ⁸“^aBut for the cowardly and ¹unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in ^bthe lake that burns with fire and ²brimstone, which is the ^csecond death.”

⁹^aThen one of the seven angels who have the ^bseven bowls ¹full of the ^cseven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “^dCome here, I will show you the ^ebride, the wife of the Lamb.”

New Jerusalem, the Holy City

¹⁰And ^ahe carried me away ¹^,^bin the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me ^cthe holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, ¹¹having ^athe glory of God. Her ¹brilliance was like precious stone, as a ^bstone of ^ccrystal-clear jasper. ¹²¹It had a great and high wall. ²It had ^atwelve ^bgates and at those gates, twelve angels; and names ³have been written on those gates, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. ¹³There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. ¹⁴And the wall of the city had ^atwelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the ^btwelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵And the one who spoke with me had a ¹gold measuring ^arod to measure the city and its ^bgates and its wall. ¹⁶And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the ¹rod, ²12,000 stadia; its length and width and height are equal. ¹⁷And he measured its wall, ¹144 cubits, according to ^ahuman ²measurements, which are also ^bangelic measurements. ¹⁸And the material of the wall was ^ajasper, and the city was ^bpure gold, like pure ^cglass. ¹⁹^aThe foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was ^bjasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, ^cemerald; ²⁰the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, ^asardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. ²¹And the twelve ^agates were twelve ^bpearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was ^cpure gold, like transparent ^dglass.

²²And I saw ^ano sanctuary in it, for the ^bLord God the Almighty and the ^cLamb are its sanctuary. ²³And the city ^ahas no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for ^bthe glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the ^cLamb. ²⁴^aAnd the nations will walk by its light, and the ^bkings of the earth ¹will bring their glory into it. ²⁵^aAnd its gates ^bwill never be closed by day, for ^cthere will be no night there; ²⁶and ^athey will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. ²⁷And ^anothing defiled, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those ¹whose names are ^bwritten in the Lamb’s book of life.

The Reign of Yahweh’s Anointed

2Why do ^athe ¹nations rageAnd the peoples ^bmeditate on a vain thing?²The ^akings of the earth take their standAnd the rulers take counsel together^bAgainst Yahweh and against His ¹^,^cAnointed, saying,³“Let us ^atear their fetters apartAnd cast away their cords from us!”⁴He who ¹sits in the heavens ^alaughs,The Lord ^bmocks them.⁵Then He speaks to them in His ^aangerAnd ^bterrifies them in His fury, saying,⁶“But as for Me, I have ¹installed ^aMy KingUpon Zion, ^bMy holy mountain.”⁷“I will surely tell of the ¹decree of Yahweh:He said to Me, ‘You are ^aMy Son,Today I have begotten You.⁸‘Ask of Me, and ^aI will surely give ^bthe ¹nations as Your inheritance,And the ^cends of the earth as Your possession.⁹‘You shall ¹^,^abreak them with a ²rod of iron,You shall ^bshatter them like a potter’s vessel.’”¹⁰So now, O kings, ^ashow insight;Take warning, O ¹judges of the earth.¹¹Serve Yahweh with ^afearAnd rejoice with ^btrembling.¹²¹Kiss ^athe Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way,For ^bHis ²wrath may ³soon be kindled.How blessed are all who ^ctake refuge in Him!